Journey from Fiji comes to a tragic end for officer
A Californian police officer with Pacific Island roots is killed by a gunman
R
onil Singh came to the US from his native Fiji to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming an officer, joining a smalltown police force in California and working to improve his English.
On Thursday, he stopped another immigrant, this one in the country illegally, who shot and killed the corporal, authorities said.
Authorities said they identified but won’t yet name the man who killed Singh of the 12-person Newman Police Department and has not been captured. They believe the attacker is still in the area some 160km southeast of San Francisco and is armed and dangerous.
“This suspect is in our country illegally. He doesn’t belong here. He is a criminal,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson, whose agency is leading the investigation, told reporters.
Newman Police Chief Randy Richardson fought back tears as he described Singh, a 33-year-old with a newborn son, as an “American patriot”. Richardson said: “He came to America with one purpose, and that was to serve this country”.
Singh drove more than two hours each way to attend the police academy in Yuba City, Richardson said. He joined the Merced County sheriff’s office as a reserve officer and worked as an animal control officer in Turlock before being hired by the Newman force in 2011.
English was Singh’s third language and he took speech classes to improve his communication.
His death comes amid a political fight over immigration, with US President Donald Trump and Congress at an impasse over funding for a border wall. Trump tweeted about Singh’s killing, saying it’s “time to get tough on Border Security”. He ended the post with: “Build the Wall!”
Singh pulled over the attacker as part of a drunken driving investigation and fired back to try to defend himself, Christianson said.
He was shot a few minutes after radioing that he was pulling over a grey ute that had no license plate in Newman, a town of about 10,000 people. Singh died at a hospital.
“He was living the American dream,” said Stanislaus County sheriff’s Deputy Royjinder Singh. “He loved camping, loved hunting, loved fishing, loved his family.”
On his Facebook page, Singh posted pictures at Christmas from a deep-sea fishing trip that produced a big haul of crabs and fish. His profile picture shows him smiling as he stands at a patrol car with his police dog.
Singh is survived by his wife, Anamika, and their 5-month-old son.
“Please help us find this coward,” Richardson said of Singh’s killer. “We need closure, his family needs closure.”